I love karaoke. It seems like one of the most democratic pastimes I
can imagine. Anyone with sufficient nerve can sing into a microphone
in front of an audience and live out their fantasies of being a rock
star or a country western singer. At least for the length of a song.

Tonight was karaoke night at Beach Nuts, the tiny open air bar at the
dive resort where we are staying.

At first, Paul, a young dive master who was doing double duty as the
evening's DJ, spent over an hour begging and cajoling people to sing.
He appealed to their sense of social duty and when that didn't work,
bribed them with free shots. It probably comes as little surprise that
the men, regardless of how they sounded, were much more willing to sing
than the women. Perhaps it is their bravado, or perhaps an easier sense
of play or different level of ego.

Laurel had gone to bed, tired after a day that included three deep sea
dives.

I ran to the room. "You've
gotta come out, for at least one song," I said.

I have to hand it to my sister. She was in her nightgown and got dressed.

“One song, Joanie. Just one song,” she said. “I’m
really tired.”

I told her that would be ok, as long as the one song meant one that
we would sing.

Together.

(Kim: You
have such a great loving relationship with your sister...and you both
compliment each other so nicely. Liberal and conservative...opposites.)

We poured through a vinyl
bound book with hundreds of titles. To read the names of songs is to
read a cultural history of more than four decades of popular Western
music.

Funny that many people reject the idea of poetry as too highbrow but
love and can retain the words to dozens of songs.

So Laurel and I bellied up to the bar and did our best to make
our way through My Cherie Amour, by Stevie Wonder.

This will not be a crowd pleaser, I told her. For this crowd, we might
do better to pick the Beastie Boys' You’ve got to Fight for
the Right to Party or maybe Margaritaville by Jimmy Buffet.

But I didn’t care. I wanted to sing Stevie Wonder, not the Beastie
Boys. So Stevie Wonder it was.

A few minutes later, when the resort manager was trying out his best
Frank Sinatra, a 70ish business man from Rockford, Illinois who had
been chatting with us, asked Laurel to dance.

To her credit, again, she said, yes.

I am not sure if she would have said yes so much before she got sick.

I watched her on the crowded dance floor, as this old school gent guided
her under the stars by the small of her back and felt very happy. Very
happy, indeed. And I was most happy that he had asked Laurel instead
of me.